This Monday is the return to the Children's Cole after the Christmas holidays. The indications of the Ministry of Health for the Return are: Prioritize the feeling, the use of masks also in recreation, bubble groups, ventilation of classrooms, hands hygiene ... all right. But the most questioned measure arrived last Friday, only two days before the beginning of the classes, with a quarantine protocol flexibilized. Only when five or more positive cases are notified in a classroom, within a period of seven days, the students of that group should stay in their homes and keep quarantine. Or, where appropriate with 20% of the group students who have given positive.
The health recommendation on quarantines has not liked pediatrics, nor school nurses and either with several autonomous communities, who throughout this weekend, have expressed their objections.
"There is no scientific evidence to make this decision," he has rated for this newspaper Quique Bassat, coordinator of the Working Group of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) for the reopening of schooling.
Moreover, if any parent has felt relief with the possibility that your child is free from a confinement when raising up to five children who should be positive to close the classroom, Bassat warns: "People should be aware that not They will have the child isolated at home, but they will have the child infected, a few days later, at home. That will be the clear consequence of this decision. "
"Surprise a little the change in the index case isolation regulations for schools. It is striking that five positives are needed so that it is isolated to the whole bubble group, when we had already passed two to three. Three positives seemed more What reasonable for the isolation of a whole class, because it would be a lot of chance that the three cases would arrive externally and there had been no intra transmission, which is what we want to avoid with these regulations, "the expert told this newspaper.
In this way, Bassat interprets the Health Decision as "a concession at the pressure of some autonomous communities to abolish the bubble groups and it does not seem to be endorsed by science." And, in addition, he points out: "Nor had nothing happened for waiting for a few weeks, when we would have a higher vaccination percentages and the children correctly vaccinated, and they would not need to isolate themselves."
In short and clearly, Bassat sentence that "this is not the best possible decision". He in the same way he points out that "obvious the transmission that may be in the classes, because until reaching five cases there may already have been substantial transmission and, therefore, would not be a supporter of changing it."
However, the expert considers a success that has been opted for a face face to classrooms, "with more benefits for students than the risks that may exist." And he has warned families who must "fulfill the protocols and should not relax or send sick children to schools." In addition, he has insisted that "the teaching staff should be vaccinated with third doses and, in general, those who work in schools" and "continue to immunization of children".
In a similar tone, but with some different conclusions, Nativity López Langa is expressed, president of the National and International School Nursing Association (AMECE), which considers that increasing the limits to dictate quarantine among all students and the reduction of the isolates He has behind more economic and reconciliation motifs than toilets, according to Nuria Monsó.
In addition, López Langa is shown critical with the return to the return one hundred percent face-to-face "with this index of contagion so high and another 15 more days that will be of continuous increase." She even though she recognizes that the delay of classes "would have been very complicated without other additional measures."
The Community of Madrid has also been unmarked with the public health decision. The Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has defended "greater control" to the possible transmission of the virus within the classroom, with an autonomic protocol that contemplates the actuation of the General Directorate of Public Health from the three cases in the same classroom. Then, it will be the aforementioned general direction that decides what to do, including the possibility of quarantine.
In Galicia and Catalonia, criticism has focused on the hurried protocol change, just two days from the beginning of the classes. "We would like to have had it a few days before to be able to inform the different Estates of the educational community," Román Rodríguez, Culture, Education and Universities of the Xunta de Galicia, confessed, in a radio interview.
In the same line, sources from the Department of Health of the Generalitat have expressed their disagreement with which this decision is adopted "two days before school resumption, taking into account the change of protocol involved and for the need to adequately inform the Citizenship In general and, in particular, professionals in the field of health and the educational community. "
In addition, Catalonia has announced this Sunday that it will maintain free testing to students who are close contact of a positive, an indication that does not have the guarantee of the Commission of Public Health of Health.
The opening of the classrooms is produced with incidence data at 14 days in the national territory above 2,700 cases. While 32.1% of children between 5 and 11 years old are immunized with a first dose of the vaccine.
According to Health, there are 3,349,276 minors between 5 and 11 years old who have to be vaccinated. The childhood vaccination campaign against A Covid began on December 15 and 1,076,522 have received the first puncture.
Date Of Update: 09 January 2022, 20:17
